Tom Goss has a new single Pride which celebrates the rainbow of people who make up the LGBTQ community and their stories of hope, perseverance, triumph, and love.
“When we think of Pride, we often think of tens of thousands of people marching in a parade, but it’s much more than that,” Goss said. “It’s the individuals, the love they share, and the moments together that make up the mosaic that is Pride as we know it today. That’s what this song is about.”
The song has been released to coincide with Pride celebrations around the globe during the month of June. The celebrations align with the 1969 Stonewall Riots that occurred in New York. Locally Pride is celebrated in October and November.
The idea for the new song was sparked by a cross-country road trip Tom and his husband took last summer.
“We stayed in rural areas, ate sandwiches in our car and kept to ourselves, with one exception,” Tom Goss explains. “We stopped off in Reading, Pennsylvania to visit our friend Ben, who had recently lost his partner Rich.”
Rich and Ben were cornerstones in their local LGBTQ community, working hard to make Reading a loving, welcoming and tight-knit city for all. Upon Rich’s death, the city hosted a memorial service in front of City Hall in his honor. “We had a picnic lunch, talked, cried and visited the cemetery. I got to know more about their love story and was deeply moved,” Goss remembers.
Their story inspired the singer to think about all of the other people who have fought tirelessly to make being gay something to be celebrated. People like Rich and Ben, living and loving quietly but heroically in small cities and towns across the country. The world may never know their names, but that doesn’t make their stories any less important.
Tom Goss explains how he made the video for the song
Goss issued a post on Facebook, asking LGBTQ couples to share their love stories with him. He was inundated by the most beautiful and moving testimonials from all over the world. One told of Jim and Jim who met in Cheyenne, Wyoming, raised a family, and worked tirelessly to protect the rights of LGBTQ students. Goss thought it a beautiful counterpoint to Rich and Ben’s story and combined both in his song.
“If it were possible, ‘Pride’ would have been countless verses long, detailing the story of hundreds of thousands of loving LGBTQ people who have helped to create what we call pride today,” Goss said.
The clip sees the singer being aged many decades to portray the characters in the video when they are older.
“I hope ‘Pride’ and it’s music video encourage people in the community to stop and reflect on how we got to where we are today,” Tom Goss said. “We owe so much to our forefathers and mothers. We cannot begin to imagine the hardships they endured, and that’s by design. They wouldn’t allow it. They wanted a better world for us, so they created it for us.”
“It’s important that we respect and pay homage to those that fought for us and continue the fight for the generations to follow. That is Pride.”
Take a look at the clip.
OIP Staff
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